ERP for E-commerce Integration: Full-Step Guide

As a business grows, expands its sales channels, and enters new markets, data management becomes more bearable with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. According to Software Path, the main reasons for ERP e-commerce integration among businesses are growth support (31%), functionality improvement (20%), increase in efficiency (13%), separate systems consolidation and legacy software replacement (12%).

In this article, the Dinarys specialists will share the top benefits of having ERP software in place, explain key e-commerce and ERP integration steps, and highlight the best ERP vendors to integrate your Magento or Shopware e-commerce solution with.

What Does ERP Mean for E-commerce?

The main task of ERP software is to ensure strong real-time synergy between core business processes, such as human resources management, financial accounting, manufacturing, marketing operations, order processing, and supply chain management.

ERP is an essential solution for large organizations; however, there is a clear tendency in ERP adoption among small companies. The following industries most often resort to ERP software implementation:

• Manufacturing. These organizations, as some of the most dynamically developing ones, decide to bring together their disparate business processes under a single centralized application to increase productivity and make their products more cost-efficient.
• Education. ERP e-commerce integration helps education institutions to minimize paperwork. Furthermore, the software makes information more accessible to both teachers and students, which positively impacts the learning process.
• Healthcare. The healthcare industry, with its strict legislation standards, also requires a multifaceted system to collect, store, and process patients’ records in a centralized way.

You can find more industries that successfully make use of ERP software in the picture below.

Each company is unique, and there are no typical criteria to determine the proper time to integrate ERP into your e-commerce. Nevertheless, the following signs indicate that your corporation might call for an ERP solution:

• Your business runs on multiple software programs without real-time data synchronization.
• Further software integration doesn’t seem cost-effective.
• Your accounting and financial reporting routine implies cross-posting data manually.
• Your business appears to be rigorous in meeting customer preferences.

Dinarys, as an e-commerce consulting company, believes that correctly picked technologies can effectively streamline various business metrics. Contact us, and we will help you meet modern market challenges steadfastly.

Benefits of ERP Integration with E-commerce

As we said, ERP affects the performance of different business departments. The following aspects show in general how your business can generate profit from ERP implementation:

• Time-saving due to real-time data availability. Each department fulfills specific tasks daily. ERP for e-commerce allows for increased data visibility and facilitates an overall decision-making process by integrating information supplied by a separate team.
• Customer satisfaction. With ERP for e-commerce, you can easily reach your target audience across diverse sales channels and deliver relevant content in a timely manner. For example, with ERP, it’s possible to automatically update assortment and prevent situations when a customer purchases a product that is out of stock.
• Cost savings in the big picture. Although ERP e-commerce integration demands certain investments in the early stages, afterward, it helps businesses save on costs. How does it accomplish this? The accuracy of delivered information leads to higher customer satisfaction and, in turn, to higher profits, and automatization of inner business operations leads to lower operational costs.

However, some businesses opt for CRM software and find that everything works well. Furthermore, the video below describes the ways in which ERP and CRM help organizations increase their profits.

E-commerce and ERP Integration Steps

Once you have decided that ERP integration is exactly what your business currently needs, you might be interested in where to start. The steps our business analyst introduces below will be helpful for you then.

1. Set goals you want to achieve with your new e-commerce ERP system. To clearly identify your subsequent course of action and choose the right ERP software vendor, write down approximate parameters you must hit with ERP. For instance, boost the speed of order processing by 40%.

2. Determine exact data types that must be exchanged among departments and available to customers. Within the enterprise, information comes from multiple sources. Before e-commerce website integration with ERP, you must formulate a holistic picture of how your data will be distributed across endpoints.

3. Organize your database. Make sure that your data storage format is compatible with all involved systems. This will help you prevent potential errors during data synchronization and allow you to get the most out of your ERP app.

4. Start the integration process. By entrusting your ERP and e-commerce integration to professional developers, you can considerably accelerate this procedure and protect your business from potential setbacks. Your integration contractors will be fully responsible for the solution purchase, deployment, and initial setup.

5. Align your workflow with a new system. The ERP implementation is not the final step. Be ready for radical changes in your current workflow. This entails training employees and conducting regular assessments of whether your new system completely addresses the goals you set in the early integration stages.

Conclusion

Modern enterprises should possess a reliable solution to manage their data in a coherent way. ERP for e-commerce, then, becomes an inevitable part of both your inner business activities management and interactions with your customers. It will allow you to establish control over every department and offer a skillfully crafted user experience.

Consider Dinarys as your ERP solution provider. Contact us, and we will help you automate your routine and achieve better collaboration between your teams.